279 replies to this topic

[LegalHomeForms]

Thanks for all the replies. I was just really disappointed. I have been working everyday on link exchanges and I was hoping that I didn't do anything to get penalized.

I have been reading a lot of threads and Newbie articles here. This is a great site! Everyone is so helpful. Thanks!

[SumDumGoy]

Hey all,

Just discovered something weird when trying to find my backlinks. I've been using MSN as my primary source for checking backlinks ever since I read about Google's BL tool being "broken". But just out of curiosity I tried a few different things.

1) I put in link:www.sportcompactonly.com and come up with 52-70 links depending on the day I do it.

2) I put in link: www.sportcompactonly.com (notice the space) and come up with something in the 800s.

3) I put in link:sportcompactonly.com (no www, no space) and come up with nothing. This function doesn't seem to work.

4) I put in link: sportcompactonly.com (no www with a space) and come up with something in the 900s.

I'm assuming the difference between with and without the www is how the sites that link to it are calling the URL. But I just thought this was interesting, maybe Google is just changing their syntax. Or maybe it's been this way the entire time? Not sure. I'm noticing that MSN seems to react differently to the syntax as well, so maybe it's nothing. What do you guys think?

[chrishirst]

all the anwers to the link: are in the thread where this post will be

[Randy]

1 & 3 I get a lot more than 52-70. To be specific I get 173 with the www and 176 without.

2 & 4 A search for link:<space> is incorrect syntax. As Chris mentioned, it's explained elsewhere.

[Neil F]

My execshirts site is doing very well in MSN/Yahoo, on a phrase that has about 9-14 Million search hits for that phrase in either, my site is ranked #1, for the same phrase in Google it is ranked #194

My site does okay in other parts of Google, it has been up for over a year and I saw a marked jump in my rankings after 9 months, but it is still no where near the other two.

I know that links/backlinks are important in Google, so I did a name search in all three and I came up with 967 in Google, 1437 in MSN, and 4670 in Yahoo.

Is there a reason why Google shows so many fewer links than the other two? I don't want to tinker with my site since it is doing so well in Yahoo & MSN, but I would like to get up there in Google as well.

Other than the generic "get more links" is there something else I am missing? Why does Google show this disparity? Does anybody have and ideas?

I thank all of you in advance for taking the time to read and respond to this.

[AaronNimocks]

There are many threads on this topic. Basically Google doesnt show all the backlinks (so you can never get a reliable number). MSN right now (at this second) is the only reliable source. Yahoo is showing a high number for backlinks (more than what there is).

[Neil F]

If MSN is showing around 1400 and Google around 1000, then that is fairly close in the links area, but still way off in the Search Rankings.

I know that different engines use different parameters, but for me to be #1 in both Yahoo & MSN and #194 in Google is disturbing.

My site is targeted and if I have about 1000 links in Google, I would think that it would rank higher for this term (as in the other 2 search engines).

Is there something that I am missing here? I know the whole backlinks/anchor text thing and have worked on that...but still no love from Google...

Anyone have any "out of the box" thoughts on this?

Thanks again

[OldWelshGuy]

Have you removed the backlinks from your own site from those stats?

There are many factors involved, and saying 1,000 backlinks doesn't really say much. Sure, 1,000 backlinks for the phrase, 'sheep farming in wales' should get you a number one position. 1,000 backlinks for the phrase ' bad credit mortgage' is not going to get you a look in.

Another thing to consider is the type of backlink, i.e. what is the mix of anchor text, c class IP's sites etc. I have some 5,000 backlinks to one of my sites from one of my forums alone, but they are probably mostly ignored (at least that is what the tests tell me).

The days of chose one keyphrase, slap a mountain of backlinks in place and get a #1 ranking, have gone. (not that I am condoning this approach of course).

[Neil F]

OWG,

Thanks for the feedback...again...

My anchor text changes a little bit, and I believe that most of the links are from other sites, but I am not 100% sure. You know I am a novice on a lot of this stuff...

The funny thing with Google is that I am competitive on some phrases and COMPLETELY uncompetitive on my main phrases. Whereas I am am completely competitive on my main phrases in MSN and Yahoo and very competitive on related phrases as well.

For example, "white dress shirts" (related phrase) has over 1 Million hits in all the engines, and I am ranked in the top 3 or 4 in all three sites...go figure...

Can you explain what you meant by this:

"c class IP's sites etc"

Thanks...

[oneofthe3lions]

Just to agree with what OWG says.. multiple backlinks from the same domain certainly seem pointless, it seems to me that one link per site is counted nowadays, hence the futility of site wide links to other domains and hence in many many situations the low PR for sites with an 'apparently' high number of backlinks.

[Michael Martinez]

Multiple backlinks from the same domain can help, provided they are not all the same. I sometimes see new content pages on my sites leap to the forefront of less competitive search terms simply because of the internal links from my own domains (keep in mind that my cross-linking may or may not include mutiple domains -- it varies from page to page).

For the more competitive expressions, I am very sure that forum links help in some respects. They contribute tens of thousands of links and grow very naturally. I am beginning to wonder if Google doesn't look at the growth rate for forums and factor that into consideration.

A young forum with few posts would be something to watch. A young forum with thousands of posts would be suspicious. An old forum with few posts would be unimportant. An old, active forum which continues to add content would obviously be important to the people using it.

[kpaulin]

We have a website...it's doing very well...26k UV's last month and $200k in on-line revenues and growing steadily...PR=5, Alexa=134,269...we've SEO'd all the titles, keywords, on page text etc etc and continue to work on links...the funny thing is, when we check inbound links on google it indicates 29 inbound links (of which about half are self-referring)...we know there are many more with PR4+ (eg www.scec.com.au, wikitravel.org, dmoz.org etc)...they just don't show up...is there something we are doing wrong? KP

[Edit to remove live link. Please see [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?act=boardrules]Forum Rules[/url].]

Edited by Randy, 13 August 2005 - 07:48 AM.

[Randy]

Welcome kpaulin !

The link: command on Google has been set to show a sampling of your backlinks, not all of them. You're best off to ignore that particular advanced command.

This has been covered in many other threads around here, one of which is this pinned post. A search should turn up others for you.

Going to close this one out.

[ibizconsultants]

Hello All,

I see that the pages where I got a link from is cached by Google, but the links section when I search for my website does not show up yes.... does this take time or is it that sites with good rankings are displayed in the link section of Google.

Also how do I get to see the links information from MSN and Yahoo.

Thanks
iBizConsultants

[Jill]

Google's link checker doesn't work. Please see the thread pinned at the top of the link popularity forum for more info.